National Geographic Apologizes For Their “Past Racism”

National Geographic acknowledged on Monday that it covered the world through a racist lens for generations, with its magazine portrayals of bare-breasted women and naive brown-skinned tribesmen as savage, unsophisticated and unintelligent.

Were the women getting unclothed for the photo shoot, or was that the way they walked around? Were the tribesman civilized and intelligent?

For example, in a 1916 article about Australia, the caption on a photo of two Aboriginal people read: “South Australian Blackfellows: These savages rank lowest in intelligence of all human beings.”

Did they? Were they feigning low intelligence, or was Nat Geo lying?

In National Geographic’s April issue, Goldberg, who identified herself as National Geographic’s first woman and first Jewish editor, wrote a letter titled “For Decades, Our Coverage Was Racist. To Rise Above Our Past, We Must Acknowledge It.”

So no more photo expeditions uncovering tribesmen living deep in the jungles in far away lands? Why? Would that be racist? It won’t be if you lie and say they have high IQs.

“I knew when we looked back there would be some storytelling that we obviously would never do today, that we don’t do and we’re not proud of,” she told AP. “But it seemed to me if we want to credibly talk about race, we better look and see how we talked about race.”

Nat Geo is interested in their new truth, a version based on their agenda. It will skew every story through their current political lens. How is this any different than what they say the old Nat Geo was?

Making sure that kind of coverage never happens again should be paramount, Husni said. “Trying to integrate the magazine media with more hiring of diverse writers and minorities in the magazine field is how we apologize for the past,” Husni said.

Goldberg said, “So we need photographers who are African-American and Native American because they are going to capture a different truth and maybe a more accurate story.”

15 Comments on National Geographic Apologizes For Their “Past Racism”

We dropped our subscription 35 years ago, not because of their past racism, but because of their incessant political correctness. Looks like the best indicator of future performance is STILL past performance.

NatGeo, Smithso, AmSci, SciAm, all gone into the PC waste bin.
They wonder how to increase subscriptions, all the while, insulting half the country.
There are not enough “cool people” to keep the lights on folks.

Pandering to the profligate has never proven wise for commerce.
They’ve surrendered any relevance they have left.
Hell, no one goes to the library anymore, they’re too busy playing candy crush on their phone.
P.C. is creating regressive, idiotic, uncivilized world.
I fear for the quality of life to come for my grand daughters.

“People of color were often scantily clothed, people of color were usually not seen in cities, people of color were not often surrounded by technologies of automobiles, airplanes or trains or factories,” he said. “People of color were often pictured as living as if their ancestors might have lived several hundreds of years ago and that’s in contrast to westerners who are always fully clothed and often carrying technology.”

– Because Al Gore didn’t invent the internet, Robert Mugabe did! You know how good your car and cell phone work in central African shitholes? And remember the great export power of 20th century South American and African manufacturing juggernauts? – Me neither. Were the people they pictured living as their ancestors lived just studio shots? Did NG perpetuate a false reality by sending film crews to equatorial nations to build complex sets in jungles and construct costumes for all of these people? Finally I thought these people were living in HARMONY with nature which is noble and modern man is killing the world and that is evil. BTW – Remember the great photos of brown people living in cities during the run-up to the summer Olympics in Brazil, I am good without seeing shitholes.

I still have a soft spot in my heart for Nat Geo. They were the only sex education we had in
Jr. High. I didn’t even know breasts came in any colors other than black until high school.
But that’s another story.